What I saw and heard at nac rental ~ Photographers want to express their individuality with lenses

Last December, I did a lot of research for this year's preparations, but I was so busy at the end of the year that I couldn't finish everything. I'm going to put out a little bit of impact here.

In mid-December, I visited nac (Nac Image Technology).

Mr. Iwashi, the sales person, what are the latest trends? When I asked him, he said that it would be an anamorphic lens and a vintage lens.

I can see the interest in anamorphic lenses. Not only ARRI's ALEXA, but Sony's VENICE also uses 36x24mm full-frame CMOS, assuming 4:3 anamorphic. It has a 4:3 anamorphic mode, so it's definitely trending. However, there is no lens that can be used casually, except for SLRMagic. I tried that as well, and to be honest, I thought it was a little tough on the operational side.

So, what is a vintage lens?

nac is a long-established store for renting movie equipment, so they still have old lenses, but that's what brings value.

A shelf full of lenses. These are lenses that are not assembled as a set, but are properly adjusted and used. At the top you can see the new Zeiss lightweight zoom 21-100mm. The middle row is mainly vintage lenses of Carl Zeiss prime lenses.

ARRI's ALEXA is now standard in commercials and movies, but modern digital cinema cameras are not limited to ARRI, Sony, Panasonic, Canon, RED, Blackmagic, all of them shoot in high definition. It's true that each manufacturer has its own individuality, but it's not as individual as the film cameras of the past. Also, with the advent of digital cinema, DIT, and color grading, it seems that it is becoming increasingly difficult to express (the photographer's) individuality at the time of shooting through "color." As a photographer, in order to express one's individuality and say, "Ah, if you ask this photographer, he'll take good pictures," you have the option of expressing your individuality by choosing lenses with "bokeh" and "contrast." is.

There is a demand for vintage lenses. Depending on the cameraman, it is often said that this lens is specifically specified.

When I see nac rentals cleaning the returned rentals, it's certainly a pretty old lens.

It was also a vintage lens that was used to calibrate the camera.

What's even more surprising is that nac has been using vintage lenses for the past few years and has also been offering lenses with the coating removed as rental items. It's not a matter of just removing the coatings randomly. Instead, he says that he removes the coatings after conducting research experiments to see how the rendering will change if the coatings on the lenses are removed.

This is the lens with the coating removed. The lens barrel is also silver so that it can be distinguished.

Sure. I wonder if there is no coating on the front lens.

For example, if you remove the coating on the front lens element, ghosting is more likely to occur, and if you remove the coating on the rear lens element, the contrast will decrease. It's called. nac is not only a movie equipment rental and import agency, but also a manufacturer of video measurement equipment.

This lens is an anamorphic lens from German Vantage, labeled as Vintage '74 and labeled as Enhanced Flare. Flare emphasis. It's a low-contrast anamorphic lens that reproduces 70's-style flares and chromatic aberrations.

It is the logic and the marketing slogan of the lens manufacturer that it is better not to have flare and to have high contrast. and the high-contrast images are tiring to watch for long periods of time. Especially when it comes to 4K digital cinema cameras, it may be that we have been trying to figure out how to make the lens soft and tasteful.

Lens were selected based on a different standard that cannot be measured by MTF alone at the rental site, which is close to the user side.

This topic continues.